Advanced Usage

Information for advanced users of the API.

In addition the search, an alternative approach to querying data is with the underlying _search function. Instead of using input parameters defined in the client, direct API query parameters are used instead. Documentation on which of these are available for each endpoint can be found here or here. While this information is provided, most people can and should stick to using the standard search function.

The code below is an example illustrating the difference in querying for data from the summary endpoint with volume criteria using search and _search:

from mp_api.client import MPRester

with MPRester("your_api_key_here") as mpr:
    # -- Using 'search'
    docs = mpr.materials.summary.search(volume=(3,10))
    
    # -- Using '_search'
    docs = mpr.materials.summary._search(volume_min=3, volume_max=10)